Honesty

Pointers on Honesty

Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness, including straightforwardness of conduct, along with the absence of lying, cheating, theft, etc. Furthermore, honesty means being trustworthy, loyal, fair, and sincere.

Honesty is important because it creates peace of mind and promotes relationships of trust. The benefits of honesty extend to personal health, relationships and society at large. The opposite, lying, leads to distrust, conflict, corruption and anxiety.

"Honesty is the best policy" is a proverb of Benjamin Franklin; however, the quote "Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom" is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, as used in a letter to Nathaniel Macon.

A dishonest man may have some advantage for the time being. But he soon realizes his mistakes. A dishonest man is a curse to society. He ruins the whole system of society.

In a nutshell, honesty is the best policy means that it is best to be honest. This proverb can be traced to philosophical ideas. For instance in his work ‘Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals’, Immanuel Kant came up with the categorical imperative. This principle means that we should act in the way we would like all human beings to act.